I really thought the days of region-locking were dying with the DVD, but it seems I was wrong - Samsung has decided to revive the odious practice with its Galaxy Note 3 smartphone.

Yes, if you buy an unlocked Note 3 in Europe and travel to, say, the U.S., you will not be able to use a local SIM card. In other words, you will be forced to buy your carrier's outrageous roaming fees or go Wi-Fi-only.

If you want to earn some nice profits by high roaming charges than you lock the device to your network or at least your country and not to a region. I'm paying roaming fees in other european countries all the time but I'm only in another region every few years.

If you want to earn some nice profits by high roaming charges than you lock the device to your network or at least your country and not to a region. I'm paying roaming fees in other european countries all the time but I'm only in another region every few years.

Won't get any argument from me, but this way they can nail a segment of the market that do a lot of region travel. It's a nasty move and I don't like it anymore than you do. I'm just saying there's an obvious reason they're doing this; either the carriers will push more Samsung devices in exchange or else perhaps a bit of a kickback from the roaming charges they will collect. Either way this should be stopped, and the best way to stop it is to not buy it. You hear that, European readers? Do not buy the European Galaxy Note 3. Vote with your wallet this time and we may not have to fight this battle again. In fact, don't buy Samsung phones for a while.

If you want to earn some nice profits by high roaming charges than you lock the device to your network or at least your country and not to a region. I'm paying roaming fees in other european countries all the time but I'm only in another region every few years.

You try to make that fly with the EU. You already pay far less in roaming fees in other EU countries than you used to because the EU has intervened several times, and more reductions are in the cards - in other words there's less and less to earn for the carriers from trying to enforce roaming within the EU countries at least, and greater and greater chance they'd just provoke more regulation.

The profits are still decent: I pay 7.5 cent per minute at home, 28.56 ct/min in all member states of the EU and no less than 149 ct/min in other european countries, same as in the USA. 0 ct/m, 8.33 ct/m and 69 ct/m for incoming calls. 7.5 ct / 9.52 ct / 49 ct for a SMS.

People in small countries with lots of tourists like Austria do profit from the high roaming costs, the locals get really nice deals from their telcos. But inhabitants of Switzerland on the other hand do have very high costs for local calls and for roaming. Like prices elsewhere 15 years ago, about 4 times higher than in Germany.